The present invention relates to a tamper evident band for use with closures of the type typically used to seal beverage containers, medicine bottles and the like.
Various beverages, foods, medicines and the like are delivered to the public in bottles or containers with resealable closures. Resealable closures provide a benefit to the consumer in that the containers can be tightly sealed and resealed after opening, prolonging the shelf life of the product and maintaining freshness. Although resealable containers provide benefits to consumers, they permit unauthorized and sometimes undetectable tampering with the product.
It is known to use a tamper evident band in conjunction with a closure to remedy the problems of tampering. Typical known tamper evident closures have a closure portion and a tamper evident band portion. The tamper evident band portion is frangibly connected to the closure portion. Upon removal of the closure the frangible connection breaks, leaving the tamper evident band on the bottle's neck. The broken frangible connection provides the user with visual evidence that the container has already been opened and that the container contents may have been tampered with or altered.
Various means are known to effectuate the separation of the closure and tamper evident band portions upon removal of the closure from the container neck. These designs typically utilize variations of a locking assembly, whereby, the tamper evident band portion has an internally projecting annular flange which engages an externally projecting locking lug of a bottle neck. The flange and locking lug are sized so that the flange has an inside diameter slightly smaller than the outside diameter of a locking lug. In this respect, with the flange disposed below the locking lug, the locking lug creates a barrier to passage of the flange when the closure is unscrewed. As the closure is unscrewed the flange cannot pass the barrier, causing the frangible connection to yield and the tamper evident band to separate from the closure.
Although the barrier created by the locking lug and the flange creates the necessary means for breaking the frangible connection, during capping the barrier is problematic since the flange must be forced over it. The force and torque required to snap the flange over the locking lug barrier during capping frequently destroys the frangible connection, separating the tamper evident band from the closure and causing it to lose its tamper indicating function.
It is known in the art to alleviate this problem by tapering or rounding the lower portion of the flange or the upper surface of the locking lug to reduce the force required to urge the flange over the locking lug during capping. In this way, the inclined or rounded surfaces facilitate the expansion of the flange over the lug during sealing but not during removal.
Although the known contouring facilitates capping, the torque and force required to snap the annular flange over the bottle neck lug is still often sufficient to destroy the frangible connection on the tamper evident band. These persistent capping defects lead to high packaging cost through product waste and lost time as failed closures are removed and replaced.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a closure with tamper evident band wherein the torque and force required to install the band is reduced such that failures of the frangible connection can be minimized during capping.